


Correlation

by looneymoony



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 16:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5255177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/looneymoony/pseuds/looneymoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There comes a time in your life where you must learn that you are not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Correlation

**Author's Note:**

> Originally Written: November 21, 2015  
> Tumblr Source: http://looneymoonyreblog.tumblr.com/post/133644313261/haha-ive-been-writing-this-since-before-halloween  
> Written in response to two prompts, as follow:  
> "Fiddauthor prompt : Fiddleford is TERRIFIED of thunder storms and ford helps him not be so scared"  
> "idk if youre still taking prompts but college fiddauthor celebrating halloween? maybe like watching scary movies or going to a party or something idk aaaa"  
> haha i’ve been writing this since before halloween :)))) i guess the announcement of gf ending prompted me to finally buck up and finish this? hope y'all like it! it features my fave headcanon of fidds getting more southern the more upset he is

Stanford tapped his foot impatiently. _Not yet,_ he thought. _If you look now, you’ll be disappointed._

He took a peek anyways. _Pathetic_.

Ignoring his own scolding, he bit his tongue as his brain read the watch ( _he_ didn’t read it, not really, he couldn’t) which indicated that he’d been poised at the exit two minutes too long. His heart beat faster as he heard thunder rumble outside. Scowling at the door across the room, he called out to his dormmate. “Hurry up, Fiddleford!”

An indistinct shout was the hardly audible response. Stanford rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna leave without you!”

“I SAID I’LL JUST BE ANOTHER MINUTE!” (he did not notice that this exclamation was conspicuously shrill.)

“We don’t _have_ another minute!” it was more to himself than it was to Fiddleford. He clenched his fists, trying to ignore the raindrops that clawed at the window like a thousand thorns and his tendency to drive as such to give Evel Knievel nightmares.

_Nightmares I’d sooner have over seeing Donna again._

The thought was not a welcome one, but, as thoughts are, it was tied to another, and another, and before he knew it he was back in the drive-in’s, plastered to the sweaty seat of the car with Fiddleford breathing on his neck and an unusual extra appendage on the center console. He was lucky he’d even been invited to her Halloween party (the circumstances surrounding the enigma were still cloudy, like the memory form of a morning passed without glasses); they hadn’t exactly left their last rendezvous on good terms, and showing up tardy certainly wasn’t going to impose any sense of camaraderie between the two. _Damn it, Stanford, you just had to go and make out with him while you were on a DATE WITH SOMEONE ELSE –_

He took a slow breath to futilely regain his composure. There would be countless more reticent breakfasts to come where gazes would be ardently unmet and whispers of _that night_ would hang in the air unmentioned. Now was not one of those breakfasts. Now he was going to drag Fiddleford’s ass out of his room and into the car so they could get to the damn party. He huffed to the bedroom and rapped his knuckles against the door. “Come on, Fidds, we’re gonna be late!”

“Fer cryin’ out loud, would ya keep yer shirt on? I’ll be right out!” is something along the exasperated lines of what Stanford was expecting to hear.

But he didn’t hear that. He didn’t hear anything.

The lack of a response caught Stanford off guard. Confused, he knocked again and tried the doorknob. _Locked_ , he thought. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered if he’d known of the lock’s existence prior to that moment. “Fiddleford?” he pressed his ear against the door and could just barely make out the muffled sounds of heavy, rapid, and erratic breathing.

His heart began to pound against his ribcage as if it were trying to tear out of his chest. _What the hell is going on in there?!_ “Fiddleford, please let me in,” he continued to fuss with the doorknob in vain, his voice strikingly shakier than anticipated. He kicked the lock one last time out of frustration and was startled when the door gave way, causing him to crash face-first onto the bedroom carpet.

Stanford couldn’t see anything when he finally got up. The room’s darkness was suffocating, with only the light coming in from the doorway shining on a cabinet in front of him. He stumbled to his feet and noted that the wheezing had stopped. _God, I need a new prescription,_ he thought as he squinted at the bunk in the corner. He could just make out the motionless silhouette of a man hunched over on his bed, facing away from him.

It must have been the rain that was making the room so cold, for what else could make Ford break out in goosebumps? With a gulp, he padded slowly over to the man and stood above him. “Fiddleford, what’s the matter?”

The figure below shivered. “Leave me alone, Stanford.”

Ford clenched his jaw and hesitated a moment before setting himself on the edge of the mattress. A copper wire was strung between the two, humming with electricity, yet neither could find an appropriate component on his circuit board.

“Are you alright?”

“Please just go to Donna’s party,” he hissed.

He blinked. “I’m not… I can’t just leave you here.”

He nearly jumped as the man snapped back and shot daggers right into his eyes, a flash of lightning from the window illuminating a dormant anger. The two men stared at each other for a moment, wordless and still. Ford was almost rattled enough to leave altogether when a roaring roll of thunder shook the small apartment and he instead toppled backwards off of the bed.

The ringing in his ears finally died down and Stanford’s eyes fluttered open. His feet had refused to join the rest of him on the ground and were still atop the bed, and he wondered if he’d somehow knocked his head hard enough to physically exit his own mortal form and transcend into a different plane of existence. He was about to test his abilities of flight when a foreign hand extended into his line of sight.

He found his own hand in this new one, and suddenly he was being pulled up and a pair of blue eyes were hazy with tears. Five fingers nestled themselves perfectly in their scabbard of six and clasped the hands together. He sniffed, and he was fine, it’s really nothing, I don’t want to talk about it, and they were hugging, and all of the stars in the universe around them winked out to leave them alone.

He could feel him trembling in his arms and he wondered if he himself was trembling, too; could he tell that his soul was hovering above his body and his mind was lost in the infinite galaxies of blue? "I’m mighty sorry,” said the other, and his words were slurred with shame, and he held him tighter. “I shouldn’t be this worked up over nothin’. ’m an adult and i oughta know how t’ handle somethin’ as silly as a phobia of th-thunderstorms, without havin’ t’ r-ruin yer plans fer th’ evenin’ with Donna…”

And Ford was back as himself, and he could hold the man out at arm’s length and look him straight in the eyes like he had so many times before and would so many times in the future. “Screw Donna,” he said, and he could feel all the cosmos retreating back home as he found himself grounded on Earth. “It’s a fucking college Halloween party, not the World Fair. Let’s hang here.”

It was impossible for him to hide his relief as his gaze softened and he let out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding (he tried to disguise it as a laugh, and Stanford pretended not to notice). “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah,” he smiled and tousled his blonde hair, and he laughed (for real this time), and so Stanford laughed, too. “Now, I’ve got a whole book full of H. P. Lovecraft stories that aren’t going to scare themselves. What do you say?”

Fiddleford smiled and squeezed his hand again. “That sounds perfect.”

And so Donna once more did not go on a date with Stanford Pines. Instead, he made coffee for himself and his roommate and returned to his bedroom with a massive tome in the crook of his arm. Instead, he sat down on the bed next to Fiddleford (who eagerly scooted closer and rested his head on his shoulder) and turned open to a random page. Instead, he began to read “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and his friend’s eyelids grew heavier. Instead, the storm raged on outside, and neither of the men paid it any heed.

It took him longer than it should have to realize, but in his defense, he was very caught up in making sure that every character had a unique voice and that each sentence had the proper intonations. Eventually, he heard the low snoring coming from below him, and he looked down to see Fiddleford fast asleep in his own lap.

There would be countless more breakfasts to come where Stanford’s lungs would overflow with nebulae and he would have the opportunity to confront confusion and emotion and Fiddleford all at once. For now, however, he could wrap his hand around his and plant a tiny kiss on the top of his head.

For now, he thought, leaning back and closing his eyes, he was glad that his mind was unable to correlate all its contents.


End file.
